Smuttynose Shoals Pale Ale | Smuttynose Brewing Company

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Notes / Commercial Description:
Our interpretation of a classic English beer style is copper-colored, medium-bodied and pleasantly hopped. Its flavor is delightfully complex: tangy fruit at the start, with an assertive hop crispness and a long malty palate that one well-known beer writer has compared to the flavor of freshly-baked bread.

Reviews by cmq103:

More User Reviews:

Appearance - Pours mostly clear and muddled golden orange in color with a sandstone colored, near finger width head. Sub-par retention, resulting in a thin, broken layer of suds across the top. Patches of lace are left on the glass with good stick.

Smell - Toasty, bready malts with light floral and citrus hop notes.

Taste - More hop on the tongue than the aroma leads to believe. Mostly Floral notes with a touch of citrus and spice backed by a huge, slightly toasted, bready malt backbone. Relatively balanced, clean finish with just a hint of grassy bitterness.

Overall - Lacks the punchy flavor profile of some of the great APA's, but more than makes up for that with its great balance and amazing drinkability. For a beer that's over 20 years old, that's impressive. I know Smutty has just recently began to distribute Finestkind and a few of their bombers to NorCal; I hope this one makes its way there.

12 ounce bottle into pint glass, best before 9/3/2015. Pours lightly hazy/cloudy deep orange/amber color with a 2 finger dense and fluffy light khaki head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings down the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation. Aromas of grapefruit, apricot, lemon/orange zest, pear, apple, light pine, caramel, toasted bread, and floral/grassy earthiness. Very nice aromas with good balance and complexity of citrus/fruity hops and moderate bready malt notes; with good strength. Taste of grapefruit, apricot, lemon/orange zest, pear, apple, pine, caramel, toasted bread, and floral/grassy earthiness. Moderate amount of piney/spicy bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of grapefruit, apricot, lemon/orange zest, pear, apple, pine, caramel, toasted bread, and floral/grassy earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Damn nice compelxity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity hops and moderate bready malt flavors; with a great malt/bitterness balace and zero cloying flavors after the finish. Medium carbonation and body; with a very smooth, fairly crisp/sticky, and lightly creamy mouthfeel that is nice. Alcohol is very well hidden with minimal warming present after the finish. Overall this is a damn nice American pale ale. All around great complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity hops and moderate bready malt flavors; and very smooth and crisp to drink. A very enjoyable offering.

I enjoyed this Pale Ale during the Caps vs Pens game 5, Stanley Cup Playoffs. Caps win big and are still in the race. This was a good solid pale ale. The more I have from Smutty the more I like them. The beer had a warm amber color with a nice 1/2 " head-poured a little hard. It had a smokey smell with hints of grapefruit. The taste was deeper and smokier then some other pales I've had which I enjoyed a lot. A nice medium mouthfeel with a creamy head finish. This was a good, solid, easy drinking pale ale with more character and hoppy notes then most pale ales.

Hazy orange-copper with a generous number of fine particulates on close inspection. The pale orangish, light caramel colored head is firmly creamy and looks to be quality made. In addition, it leaves fairly extensive moth-eaten curtains of lace as it recedes. This is a great looking pale ale.

Shoal's has a classic APA aroma, with plenty of power and plenty of hops. If I didn't know that Cascade and Chinook were in use, I might have been able to guess. The nose consists of white grapefruit zest, with an overlay of brown sugar and spice. Very nice.

This is a wonderful pale ale, in large part because it's hoppier than most. Malt keep its head down and out of the way, yet still imparts a modicum of balancing caramel sweetness. This beer is all about hops, though. It doesn't venture into IPA territory, but it's a near thing. Again, classic 4-C (or in this case, 2-C) flavor abounds. While it might not reach the zenith that hopheads crave, the flavor burst is more than adequate for the style.

The mouthfeel is medium with a lightly resiny, lightly slick, lingering finish. There's an active amount of carbonation that never becomes intrusive; a neat trick and a characteristic of well-brewed beer.

Smuttynose is one of the Northeast's finest breweries. Shoal's is further evidence of that fact; not that more evidence was needed. Ignore the Smutty website where they call this an English style pale ale. It's a true blue, dyed in the wool, All-American pale that displays its hop bill with pride. A very nice effort. Thanks to far333 for providing.

Amazingly I have never tried this beer until today I have been srounded by it but never gave it a shot, a very nice pour a nice clear copper with a fluffy white 2 finger head that left globs of lacing behind as it settled.Balanced aromas biscuity caramel malt intertwined with a little citrus hop.Flavors are nice but seem to me missing something to put into a higher category somehwat dry biscuity malt base with the hops providing a grassy-like finish.This beer needs more braun its all finess the flavors are nice but could be better,it is an easy going quaffer though and good for a warmer summer day like today.

Appearance  This one came out of the tap very dark, almost brown, with a nice head that showed good retention.

Smell  The classic citrusy hops were held up by a significant, dark malt backbone.

Taste  This one is interesting. The citrus hops were out in force and very bitter. The malt backbone from the nose showed up at the tongue as well. They somehow managed to keep all signs of sweetness out of this recipe, though.

Mouthfeel  This ale was medium-bodied and had a fluffy carbonation that was unusual for the style.

This beer pours a murky deep copper color with a one finger tan head that recedes to a film. Nice spotty lacing is left on the glass. Nose is of citrusy hops with caramalized malts. Taste is fruity up front with the citrus hops adding to it, middle in finish is malts, toasted malts in the middle to balance out the hops and the finish is sweet malts caramel with a touch of toffee. Light to medium body, higher carbonation - you could see the carbonation bubbles dancing in this beer, crisp feel, slightly bitter aftertaste and goes down nice and easy. Highly sessionable beer!

Comments: I enjoyed this very much. I found it to be a subdued version of the IPA (as expected) but not as bitter. The hop flavor resonates like an IPA, but is a plae ale. If I blindly tasted the IPA & Pale Ale, I would have thought the IPA was a DIPA & the Pale Ale an IPA.

Presentation: 12 oz bottle with a picture of the Samuel Haley House, located on Smuttynose Island. "This ale is unfiltered - yeast sediment is natural.", runs down the side of the label. Good news for homebrewers. Yeast propagation!

Appearance: Chill hazed amber with a thin white head.

Smell: Clean, malt sweetness with a grainy nose.

Taste: Chewy with a very dry grain flavour, pulled by a big tingly hop bitterness. Salty, due to hard water perhaps(?) yet this seems to complement the nice dryness of the brew.

Notes: Not your typical pale ale, boldly complex and extraordinarily unique. Perhaps truer to the original style than most pale ales of modern day. We love this beer.

This was an attractive copper color, with a decent head and some very nice lacing. It had a sweet odor with a hint of fruitiness (?orange). The taste was tart/hoppy and rather nondescript. It had good mouthfeel, and good drinkability. Overall, though, just an average beer.

Presentation: It was poured into from a brown 12 oz bottle into a tall Pilsner glass. The label has a freshness date but no ABV%.

Appearance: From the pour I got a rich amber colored beer with a tall white head on top. The head has very good retention and excellent lacing. It leaves nice lace rings on the glass at each sip level.

Smell: The aroma has an inviting mix of sweet bready and light caramel maltiness with solid citrus and herbal leafy spicy hops.

Taste/Palate: There is a good solid hop character with nice crisp citrus and spicy notes laid over a study foundation of bready malt that matches the bitterness from the hops. There is a touch of caramel sweetness in there as well. The finish is long and slow with a good balance of hops and malt. Its palate has a good medium to full body and a firm yet yielding texture.